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| - In a geeky world like comic collecting a place like North Coast Nostalgia is the sweet spot. Unlike the other 2 shops in the area (B & I Comics and York Comics), NCN is the perfect size place for true collectors. It is a smallish shop that keeps a good mix of old and new stuff while offering killer deals for people looking to start out their comic fetish.
For me, B & I was too small, almost claustrophobic. York is too big - not necessarily a bad thing except that the massive space isn't necessarily filled with everything you want to see. North Coast Nostalgia has just enough. However, because they are a bit smaller, they may not have some of the more rare stuff or a lot of the incentive variants that York will get in stock. Also, supplies like boxes and bags are slightly more expensive here too (probably because they don't order in as large of quantities).
Given those minor gripes, where they definitely beat out the competition is in comic value. For those looking for recent books on the cheap, NCN has boxes full of big name titles for 50 cents or $1. The same books you will find at the other places for 3 times the price. What's the catch, you ask? Prepare to spend a long time looking. The boxes don't appear to have any particular organization to them so you have to randomly sort through hundreds of comics with no promise that you will find exactly what you want. NCN also goes to a lot of shows, so when that happens, they tend to take a large portion of their good comics with them on the road. What left are the rejects or ones that aren't really valuable (which is fine for the casual reader, but not the hardcore collector).
Here's my overall opinion of when to go to each comic shop in the area:
For New Releases: York Comics
For Toys: York
For recent but not brand new books on the cheap: North Coast
For hard-to-find comics: B&I (they probably don't have it either, but they'll get it for you)
But overall, NCN is more my kind of shop. The staff are friendly and helpful without being pushy and the size of the shop is just right.
NOTE: NCN only takes credit cards for purchases over $10 so bring cash.
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